Strategies for Community Organizers and Activists

by Timlynn BabitskyThe Age of Stupid is a 90-minute film about climate change set in 2055. Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite stars as a man living alone in the devastated world 45 years from now. He looks back at video footage from 2007 and asks: Why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance?

From all I’ve seen on the Internet so far, The Age of Stupid is an incredibly powerful film. It was funded through a viral, grassroots effort and not supported by the usual film studio, media attention, and marketing dollars to make it widely known to potential movie goers. But here again, through the power of the Internet, YouTube, bloggers and you, the word is getting out. This is a MUST SEE movie!

It had its world premiere in London on March 15th 2009. It was released in UK cinemas on March 20th 2009, and will be released in other countries (Click here to find out Where? When?).

If you do nothing else this week, take a look at The Age of Stupid trailers on YouTube and at the The Age of Stupid webiste.

So what you might say. I won’t be alive in 45 years. What can you do? It’s just Nature’s way. What’s happening will not just suddenly hit the world 45 years from now…. it’s happening all around us on an every day basis. It’s already affecting your life and even your immediate future. It’s happening NOW. Will your children and their children look back to THIS time and THIS place and say “Why didn’t they stop climate change when they had the chance?

2 Comments

Good to see you back in the writing saddle again. We had a nice exchange of correspondence about a month ago. But I guess the business of the world drags us away from time to time to other pursuits.

I am glad you brought “The Age of Stupid” to everyone’s attention. It looks like it will be a good film to watch. Too bad there isn’t a promtion for Earth Day — cautionary tales like this are good to throw in with the usual marketing smarm.

I was particularly taken by the quote from the website that read as follows:

“How the heck are we meant to persuade people in India and China to develop in a more sustainable way when we’re not even prepared to accept the odd windfarm in the landscape?”

I does give one pause. It is interesting that cities and towns around the United States — and other parts of the developed world are prepared to fight against ugly wind towers — because they are unsightly; but find completely acceptable hundreds of thousands of gasoline stations (Superfund sites waiting to be catalogued) fed by gasoline delivery trucks spewing tons of soot and noxious fumes, en route from the truly gigantic Superfund sites — oil refineries — that are fed by thousands of oil tankers (anyone who has seen an oil spill up close and personal can testify as to the nastiness of that).

Ironically, the owner of the building in which Green Wave Energy Corp. has its offices, the soon-to-be-renamed “Newport Yacht Centre” is completely onboard with refitting the entire Centre — multiple buildings with ofiices and restaurants and boat slips — with our solar, wind and even wave products (Newport Bay is not suitable for wave energy but we plan to stream a project we hope to build in conjunction with the city of Avalon on Catalina Island — about 20 miles away). His biggest concern, however, is that we build everything so it will not raise the ire of the owners of the residences on the hill above Newport Bay — as they vehemently oppose anything than alters their view of the Bay in any way.

It is with attitudes like these that will make the transition to clean alternative energies challenging. I think we are going to do a better job in communicating to the public that change on the massive scale that is required to wean the world off of fossil fuels is not going to be possible without at least a little compromise or accomodation. Perhaps if we point out that the real exchange is — for example — a wind tower that blocks a bit of the view for a fossil fuel network that is slowly poisoning us all, and driving us into bankruptcy and, ultimately, perhaps into societal decline, perhaps we can work together to make some change. At least that is the hope.

Thanks, Timlynn, for continuing to take us all further along on the journey. I look forward to riding along with you.